


Soil

by sternfleck



Series: Arcana Imperii [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Chancellor Hux, Communication Issues, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Hux cries, Kylo is Trying his Best, M/M, Parent Death, Soft Kylux, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, awkward attempts at sex, consensual mind-reading for once???? can it be???, description of injury, kylo ren is dirty and smells bad, they are in love, unresolved childhood grief and loss, which is still not very good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:34:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23918368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sternfleck/pseuds/sternfleck
Summary: The Supreme Leader has a filthy surprise for his Chancellor. Neither of them expect things to get emotional.Based on the “Duel of the Fates” leaked alternate script for Episode 9.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Arcana Imperii [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694788
Comments: 12
Kudos: 74





	Soil

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this from a KHK prompt involving clean Hux and dirty Kylo. But I cannot possibly stress how much this story fails to fulfill that prompt. It's not hard. It's not kinky. It's not even proper smut.
> 
> All the fics in this leaked script series are out of chronological sequence. This fic takes place before the others, closer to _The Last Jedi_ in the timeline. They’re younger, and the trust between them isn’t as established. Kylo is also more of a piece of shit.

The Supreme Leader’s command shuttle is a place Hux takes pains to avoid.

Hux has authority over the rest of the First Order’s fleet, which means the rest of the fleet runs perfectly. Every other Order ship is run by officers in a rigid chain of command. Every other Order ship is up to date with the finest technology. Every other Order ship is spotlessly clean.

Ren’s command shuttle is none of these things. The leadership hierarchy is a joke: Ren’s Knights mingle with ‘troopers and Order officers, with anyone’s guess as to who’s in charge. The ship itself has parts that are months out of date. And the interior of Ren’s shuttle....Hux tenses at the memory of the mud tracked across the durasteel floor, the sweat and gore from battles won across the Galaxy. The smell of the place is part training gym, part slaughterhouse.

Hux has no choice but to brave the filth of Ren’s shuttle now. Ren has been injured. The Supreme Leader has requested his Chancellor’s presence at his bedside. This is an event without precedent. Therefore, this event requires a change in Hux’s avoidance protocol.

The comm transmission from Ren’s Knights gave Hux no other information. Only Ren’s injury and his request for Hux’s presence. Nothing more. The brevity of the transmission leaves room for Hux to assume the worst.

Hux is not imaginative by nature — a vivid imagination is not an asset in a life of war — but he can’t shut off his mind as it flashes a holoreel of horrors. Ren’s body broken, his eyes vacant, his face disfigured beyond recognition. Missing limbs, charred skin. Organ failure. Blood loss. Coma. The end of the man with whom Hux rules the Galaxy. The end, perhaps, of the Empire they share.

Ren incurs injuries on most missions. Minor scars. He comes to Hux at night and shows them off, expecting praise for his bravery and his skill in battle. The Supreme Leader is used to pain, and even enjoys it. If Ren’s Knights have had to call Hux to the docking bay....if Ren doesn’t have the ability to comm Hux himself....

There’s been nothing like this since Starkiller. And on Starkiller, they were rivals, in spite of their frequent nights in each other’s beds. Everything is different now. Ren isn’t a rival anymore. He’s an asset, an essential element of Hux’s carefully organised existence. There’s no one closer to the Supreme Leader than Hux, and, as much as Hux hates to admit it, the same is true reversed.

It takes immense effort for Hux to keep his breaths regular and deep. There were times, years ago, when Hux wished for Ren’s demise. But now? Now the pit of his stomach is cold as space at the thought of it.

Two of the Knights meet Hux at the bottom of the shuttle ramp. They’re filthier than usual, their black robes covered with long smears of red mud and dark stains that could be blood. Ren’s blood? Hux wants to read their faces, to judge the severity of the situation, but of course they’re wearing their kriffing masks. Inscrutable, and in Hux’s way. If Hux had use of the Force, he’d sweep them aside like dust.

“What’s happened?” Hux hisses. He tries to dart between the Knights, but they close ranks, barring him from the shuttle’s interior.

The taller Knight closes her hand around Hux’s upper arm. She’s the one who wears the mask of tessellated squares. The red mud on her glove will mar the Order insignia on Hux’s white uniform. 

“Come, Chancellor,” she says. He half expects some trick from her, some cruel joke. Ren’s Knights never seem to tire of tormenting Hux, even to the point of teasing their Master about his every interaction with the Chancellor.

“If Ren is incapacitated, I outrank everyone in the Galaxy. I order you to report to me on the Supreme Leader’s condition.”

But the Knight says nothing. An ominous sign. She leads Hux up the shuttle ramp and through the maze of narrow hallways.

Hux holds his arms close to his body, trying to make himself small enough to avoid contact with his surroundings. The walls of the shuttle are brown where they should be white, and black where they should be grey. Bits of soil scatter with each step of Hux’s boots. Even the threat of Ren’s death can’t supersede Hux’s horror of contamination. If anything, his fear intensifies. Loss, change, and filth are all permutations of the same unendurable enemy: chaos.

The Knight halts before a locked durasteel door.

“Master,” she says in her low, rough voice. “Your Chancellor is here.”

The door slides open. The Knight of Ren pushes Hux unceremoniously inside, and steps back into the dim light of the hall.

The silence strikes Hux first. There’s none of the commotion he expected. No med droids beeping, no techs or attendants at Ren’s bedside. This isn’t even the shuttle’s medical unit. It’s Ren’s private chamber.

The Supreme Leader is sitting on his narrow bunk, shirtless, conscious, filthy, and absolutely unharmed.

“Hux,” Ren says in greeting, his eyes bright. He flicks the door shut with his finger. With the Force.

In the same fluid motion, he pulls Hux towards him. The broad warm weight of the Force spreads across the small of Hux’s back. Hux stumbles, but he maintains his balance, squaring his shoulders stiffly and glaring at Ren.

“Supreme Leader, what is the meaning of this? I was informed that you had been injured.”

Ren blinks. “I am injured,” he says, but he sounds uncertain.

He extends his left arm, rolls it to show the interior of his bicep. A long, shallow cut runs along it. It’s not bleeding, not anymore. The blood has dried in a flaking smear across Ren’s arm and across his bare chest, where he’s covered in the same red mud that was all over his Knights.

Hux narrows his eyes. “That’s a graze. That’s nothing, by your standards.”

“It hurts,” says Ren. He sticks out his lower lip and gazes up at Hux with a cloying look in his eyes. He’s trying to be cute. It’s an outrage. Ren’s pout drives the waning terror out of Hux and replaces it with fury.

“Supreme Leader. I was supervising an essential briefing when your Knights informed me of your injury. I assumed the worst. You called me here to comfort you over a mere scratch?”

Ren’s Force pressure lingers on Hux’s back. He draws Hux closer, until the Chancellor stands between his spread thighs. Hux sets his feet together to reduce the risk of contact with Ren. Ren’s leggings are caked with mud and blood, and, by the rank smell of him, with sweat, too.

“I don’t want comfort. I want you, Hux.”

“Absolutely not.”

Hux spits the words. Ren has lied to him, played a nasty trick for some unknown reason, and now he expects sex. How worthless of him.

“I’m covered in dirt, Hux. You’re too clean. Give yourself to me. You’re the only one who can purify me.”

“Ren, you’re insane. Enough of your games. Be realistic.”

Ren knows their rules. Hux spent the first thirty years of his life abstaining from sex out of sheer disgust at the physical mechanics of the act, the fluids and the sweat and the rough disorder of body against body. Ren has won him through persistence, combined with concessions to Hux’s need for cleanliness. For years, they both spent time in the sonic before sex, and Ren cleaned his teeth before any deep kisses. Hux is less inhibited now, but still prefers it the old way. It’s safer, controlled, ritualistic.

“I can see your mind.”

Ren says this often, as though the contents of Hux’s mind are more real somehow than the words that come out of his mouth.

“You worried about me,” Ren goes on. “You were prepared to throw yourself on my broken body and weep like a widow.”

Hux’s nose twitches. It’s involuntary. With the muscles he does control, he sets his chin high, maintaining his pride.

“Of course I was in distress. I dislike surprises. When you fight for the Order, I expect you to win.”

Ren smirks. “I won. Now I’m claiming my prize.”

The Supreme Leader slowly dips his head, leaning forward. His hair spills over his face, and Hux glimpses the same red mud caked into it, the grease shining at the roots. The smell of Ren wafts up to Hux. Musky sweat, fuel smoke, temple incense, gore, and the bitter iron that gives the red soil its hue.

Ren’s mouth lands at the glossy buckle of Hux’s belt. Below the curtain of his locks, Ren’s red tongue emerges and he licks the surface, fogging the buckle with his breath.

Hux keeps his voice even. “That’s disgusting, Supreme Leader.”

Ren tilts his head to glance at Hux through his spill of grease-soaked hair. He moves his mouth lower. The mud on his gloves transfers to Hux’s tunic as he tugs the skirt of it up to reveal Hux’s jodhpurs. Ren nuzzles. The mud on his nose leaves a smear along the line of Hux’s not-entirely-soft cock.

“My pretty Chancellor,” he murmurs, straightening up. “So innocent. So pure. You wear white to make this more fun for me, don’t you?”

“I don’t dress for you, Supreme Leader.”

“No, you don’t, do you, Hux? You undress for me. But not today. The uniform stays on. I want to see every stain.”

This is extreme, even for Ren. He’s always had a fascination with Hux’s purity, but to manipulate Hux into boarding his shuttle, only to lock him in this room and force him to confront this repellent fantasy? It’s uncharacteristic of him. It’s like something Ren would have done in their younger years, when he was Snoke’s apprentice.

“Supreme Leader, I require an explanation for this departure from our routine.”

Ren’s mouth settles again into that infuriating pout, eyes liquid and locked on Hux’s.

“How long has it been?” The Supreme Leader’s voice is a roughened whisper.

“What? You know how long since you last fucked me, Ren. You were there.”

Ren trails his glove down the front of Hux’s tunic. Hux watches the wide path it makes. Mud, and something black as engine grease. Blood, too, dried dark. Ren’s blood.

“Since you had dirt on your skin. Real dirt. From a planet.”

“Fuck off, Ren.” It’s childish, a retort he might have resorted to years ago. He’s sinking to Ren’s level. Ren will get what he wants, in spite of Hux’s resistance. Hux scorns himself for his weakness. Ren’s hand drops lower and heat fills Hux’s belly, his chest.

“It’s a real question. You grew up on ships, right? Have you ever put your hands in mud? Walked on the ground with bare feet?”

What the hell is this? It’s bizarre, kinky. Ren isn’t even into Hux getting messy. He likes Hux the way Hux likes himself: pure.

“Sit,” Ren says. “I’m going to find out. I’ll take the answer out of your mind.”

Hux does sit. He settles at the edge of the bed, knees together, back straight, even as he flinches at the thought of what Ren will do.

The terrible thing about Ren reading Hux’s mind is that it’s nothing like when Ren reads the minds of prisoners or traitors. When Ren reaches inside a criminal’s head to extract information for the Order, he takes every memory he can find. At the end, if Ren’s target survives, they’re no longer the same. They stare, unfocused, trying to put back pieces of their psyche that no longer fit to make a whole. When the Chancellor presides over the execution of one of these ravaged unfortunates, he considers it a mercy when the lightblade falls.

When Ren dips inside Hux’s mind, it’s a sweeter torture by far. Ren sifts through Hux’s memories with childlike curiosity, viewing the world through Hux’s eyes. He savours Hux’s day-to-day routines, his pride in the Order, his love of the Galaxy they’ve brought under their command together. He watches Hux on the _Finalizer_ , Hux at the Academy, little Hux in exile in the Unknown Regions with Grand Admiral Sloane and the other former Imperials. 

On occasion, Ren dredges up Hux’s memories of his childhood on Arkanis, the ragged, well-worn scraps of time Hux thought he had repressed and forgotten. His mother. Her kind hands, her laughter in the kitchen garden. Her body shrinking to frail bones in the midst of the Republic’s siege. Hux’s mother was there until the day she wasn’t. Though he was only a child — though his mother was only a kitchen maid — that was the day Armitage Hux became an enemy of the New Republic.

Ren likes it inside Hux’s head, that much is clear. His presence is warm, thick as smoke, weighty, terrible in its gentleness. It suffuses Hux with an unmistakeable pleasure. Nevertheless, it’s not easy for Hux to dwell on old memories, and sometimes, when Ren leaves his mind, Hux’s face is wet with uncontrolled emotion. Ren always kisses his cheeks, drags his heavy hands through Hux’s hair until the Chancellor is calm and composed once more.

“Do your worst, Supreme Leader,” Hux murmurs, closing his eyes.

But Ren doesn’t enter his mind, not yet. He lays his fingers, filthy, gloved, on the side of Hux’s face, and turns Hux’s head towards his. Hux doesn’t open his eyes, even when the Supreme Leader’s lips meet his.

Ren kisses him softly. Unpredictable. Ren is so unpredictable. It’s infuriating, his chaos, his tenderness. Hux opens his lips. His body relaxes, against his better judgment. But Ren pulls back.

Then Hux’s head fills with a hot darkness, like falling asleep in Ren’s arms. The smell of him is everywhere, smoke sweat blood mud _yes Supreme Leader_ , a flash of Hux’s hands tracing Ren’s scarred face. An image of a frozen pond where they kissed on Starkiller Base. Back and back and back through the years. Countless late nights filing Order reports for superior officers. Phasma, alive again, laughing at one of Hux’s dark jokes. A mission to a sweltering world where the land was charred black as Ren’s hair. An assemblage of cadets at the Academy, smoking their disgusting cigarras and sneering at Hux as he passed them with his shoulders back and his head high. 

The Academy. Ren pauses here.

It’s a curious feeling when Ren pushes deeper in his mind to look for something specific. The comparison is a silly one, but Hux can’t help thinking of the way Ren puts his great nose under Hux’s ear and nuzzles him there, always at night, when he thinks Hux is asleep and won’t notice it.

The memory Ren lands on is of a training field at the Academy, a great red expanse of barren land that stretched to the edge of high cliffs in the far distance. On sunny days, the ground was parched hard as plasteel. On rainy days, the field became a morass somewhere between the hue of blood and that of Hux’s hair. Hux hated that field, even as he excelled in his training exercises there. In this memory, Hux is kneeling with a blaster rifle, obliterating targets too small to see without a scope. Dust swirls up in the distance where each bright bolt hits its mark.

Is this truly what Ren was looking for? Hux isn’t even dirty in this memory. He’s neat in his grey cadet uniform, booted, gloved, hair swept back with pomade. But then the memory flickers, and Hux is drawn into Ren’s head instead, caught in the warped black shimmer of Ren’s presence.

Ren is with his Knights. They’re subduing an enemy, a Rebel, a traitor. The man has crashed his speeder in a field of red mud, and he’s nearly dead already when one of the Knights draws a black-bladed lightsaber and hacks the traitor to pieces in the wreckage of his bike. But the traitor isn’t alone. He has reinforcements. Kylo Ren spins to face the enemies behind him, his own lightsaber flaring to life just in time to run an armoured woman through at the waist.

This was the battle Ren won today, Hux understands, as he watches Ren fight from Ren’s own perspective. Red mud everywhere, blood from the Knights’ rough weapons, the hiss of plasma from the lightsabers. Ren is elegant, practised, hypnotic in his grace. The Rebels stand no chance. How could Hux ever have feared for Ren’s safety? Why would Ren have played such a childish trick, letting Hux think he’d been harmed?

A word gleams in Hux’s mind as Ren pulls free, leaving Hux cold and empty. _Arkanis_.

Hux’s vision clears. The Supreme Leader is studying him with his wet dark eyes full of feeling. His hands are on Hux’s thighs, where Hux, without realising it, has turned to face Ren.

“You were on Arkanis, Supreme Leader?”

“A Resistance cell tried to attack the Academy. We destroyed them. No prisoners. No casualties on our side.”

“This is why you called me to your shuttle?” Things are not entirely clear to Hux, not yet, but they’re growing clearer.

Ren nods. He smears the filthy pad of his thumb across Hux’s cheek.

“I brought you dirt,” he says. “From Arkanis.”

Hux leans away from Ren’s touch. “Why would you think I would want to be covered in dirt from Arkanis?”

“It’s your home,” says Ren.

Of course it would be that simple for Ren. Home. With all his twisted empathy, with all his telepathy, Ren still can’t grasp what it’s like to have no true home, no true family, only the will to win and conquer and rise and endure.

“This is my home, Supreme Leader. The Capitol. The First Order.”

 _You,_ Hux doesn’t say, because he doesn’t need to. He’ll never say it, won’t even fully let the thought form in his head. Even if Ren had been nearly dead on his shuttle today, Hux would never give Ren the satisfaction of knowing what he means to Hux. He’s the mind-reader. Let him figure it out.

Again, Ren strokes Hux’s cheek. He pulls away, peels off his gloves, and traces the shape of Hux’s lips with cleaner fingertips.

“Don’t,” hisses Hux. After his scheme to bring Hux here, Ren has no right to make Hux feel good. “You’ve been horrible to me.”

Ren’s dark brows draw together, and he shows his teeth. “I’m not horrible. Not to you. I saved your home planet from the enemy. I’m offering you my body as a trophy of war. I’m trying to please you, Hux. Why aren’t you enjoying this?”

“I run an Empire, Supreme Leader. I don’t have time to explain the simplest rules of reasonable human interaction. Stars, Ren, did you truly think giving me a scare would win me over?”

Ren frowns. His lips drift into a pout again, but this one is natural, not affected.

“I wasn’t trying to frighten you. I thought you would want to see me. I ordered the Knights to tell you I had a gift.”

Hux isn’t sure whether he believes this. Ren isn’t above petty manipulation, though his caprice has levelled out in recent years. But the Knights take relentless thrills from playing tricks on Hux. Most likely, they were all in on the joke. It was a coordinated effort to humiliate the Chancellor. To make Hux look the fool, so they can all have a laugh later.

“I thought you were dying or dead, Ren. You knew that’s what I would think. You had to know.”

Ren’s frown deepens. “I’ll confer with my Knights. This won’t happen again.”

“Blame your Knights if you like. You could have commed me yourself.”

A poorly concealed smirk plays over Ren’s lips. “At least I know how to delegate tasks.”

“You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Why don’t you tell me why you _are_ , Chancellor? I’m unharmed. Our Empire is secure. Stronger than ever. Just change your uniform. I’ll take a sonic and you can brush my hair when it’s clean. I’ll fuck you deep, the way you like. But that’s not enough, is it? You’re shaken. You’re shaking.” 

“I’m not.” Hux tightens his fists where they’re pressed into his thighs. The movement stretches the stitches of his gloves. The trembling in his shoulders stills.

“I would have thought you’d like to get the news I was dead. Supreme Leader Hux, at last. All that power you always wanted. Your title, your ceremonies. Your Empire.”

“Stop, Ren. Don’t do this. I’ll admit it. I don’t want you dead. Are you satisfied? Is that enough?”

Ren moves closer. His eyes are arrogant, sad. His breath is on Hux’s lips.

“There’s something that matters more to you than power, Chancellor. One day, you’ll face that truth.”

It’s a maddening statement. But it’s never been easy to stay angry with Ren, not when he’s looking at Hux like he would lay the Galaxy at Hux’s feet. 

Ren has practically done that, after all. Hux is subordinate in title alone. In terms of power, he lacks only a command of the Force, and, as much as Hux hates to admit it, that isn’t Ren’s fault.

“Chancellor,” Ren murmurs. “My Chancellor. My Hux.”

Hux has absolutely no time for Ren’s sentimental games. “What do you even want with me? Why bring me here instead of coming to my throne room?”

“Hux.” Ren looks taken aback, almost offended. “I told you as soon as you walked in here. I want you. I’ll make it good for you. I promise.”

Hux didn’t walk into Ren’s shuttle chamber. He was pushed, perhaps by the same Knight Ren blames for their miscommunications. But Hux isn’t one to quibble over Ren’s words. A misplaced word is a small problem compared to the tremendous problem that is Kylo Ren.

“Make it quick,” Hux whispers. “I want as little of Arkanis on me as possible.”

“We don’t have to do this. I wanted it to be—”

“I want you, Supreme Leader. Undress me. Do not make me beg.”

As Ren unfastens Hux’s boots and tugs down his jodhpurs, Hux shuts his eyes and tries to get control of himself. His jaw is painfully tight. There’s something stuck in his throat, like he needs to cough or swallow. But when he tries to clear it, nothing happens. There’s a wet warmth rising up from his chest, burning behind his eyes.

Ren is kissing his thighs, nosing and nibbling at the soft skin. He’s murmuring Hux’s name. Hux falls back on Ren’s bunk, pulling up his tunic and his body armour to show his stomach. Ren kisses him there, too. Everywhere but Hux’s cock, which is already hard in spite of his disgust, or perhaps because of it.

“I’ll make it so good,” Ren is mumbling against his skin, talking mostly to himself. “I killed for you. Perfect pretty Hux. I’ll kill all your enemies. Rule the Galaxy together. Taste so good, Hux, you taste so good.”

There’s lubricant in the drawer under Ren’s bunk, and he pours it into his hand, slicking his cock, then Hux’s. Hux ruts into Ren’s grip. He still feels strange, like there’s something stuck halfway between his chest and his mouth, but surely Ren’s hands on him will fix this feeling. Ren’s mouth, the weight of Ren pressing him into this grubby bunk mattress, like a reminder of something familiar, even in this Galaxy where people can be taken away in an instant.

Ren covers him, kissing his uniform, his shoulders, his pointed epaulets, his chest. He pulls Hux’s collar open and pushes his nose into Hux’s neck. Ren’s filthy hair is shedding flakes of dried mud all over Hux, into his mouth, across his cheeks. It should terrify Hux, this departure from routine. He should be breathless and speechless and blank-eyed, the way he used to get in his younger years, when unexpected changes would shut him down like a droid. But the smell of Ren’s sweat is familiar, not disgusting, and Ren is covered in the mud of the planet where little Hux once stood in a kitchen garden with the only person in the Galaxy who ever truly—

Before he can stop himself, before he even realises what he’s doing, Hux has his arms around Ren, tight. The warmth of his skin is strong even through Hux’s gloves. Ren makes a noise of surprise into Hux’s neck, and lifts his head.

Hux shuts his eyes, tries to keep his face from showing any feeling. Ren shouldn’t look at him at a moment like this. The Supreme Leader will get ideas. He’ll use Hux’s emotions against him. The fragile equilibrium of the Empire they share will be torn apart, left unpredictable.

“Hux?”

Hux opens his eyes, blinking the burning dirt away.

“Are you crying?”

“There’s dirt in my eyes, you brute.” Hux swallows, but the tension in his throat remains.

“Hux. What’s the matter? I didn’t see this when I was in your head.”

“There’s nothing in my head. This is purely physical, Supreme Leader. You may proceed with our...with...sex.”

But neither of them are aroused anymore. Hux still clings to Ren’s shoulders. He can’t find the will to make himself let go.

A shadow flickers at the edge of Hux’s vision, clouding it with dark. It’s Ren in his mind again. Hux closes his eyes and lets Ren in.

He’s standing in a garden. The air smells of kitchen herbs, and the dirt at his feet is rich and soft and dark. But only a shovel’s length below the surface, the ground is red. The graves on Arkanis are dug in red soil.

He’s small, so the surface of the planet is not far away. Someone much taller is standing beside him, someone pale and slender and flame-haired, like the older Hux who watches this memory. But unlike the older Hux, the person beside him is kind.

For perhaps the last time in his life, little Armitage Hux is not afraid.

Ren’s presence lingers, even as Hux tries to shut the memory out. It’s like the way Ren looks at Hux, his insistent stare, like he’s trying to store up memories of Hux’s face in his head to keep him there for all of time. Now Ren’s trying to memorise Hux’s memories, too, even the ones Hux wants to forget.

 _Enough_ , says Hux in his mind, and Ren pulls away, nosing into the filthy bunk pillow at the side of Hux’s face.

Hux stares at the dark gridded ceiling of the shuttle bedchamber. The bars of light stretched across it are blurry, for some reason. Something wrong with his eyes. They're watery. The dirt in them. Arkanis, inescapable. Always calling him back.

“It’s okay,” says Ren, his low voice muffled by the pillow. “I miss mine too. It’s how you use the feeling that matters.”

“Your mother isn’t dead, Ren.” It’s a pointless thing to say. Petty. Hux’s voice comes out hollow as a cell.

“She’s dead to me.”

Ren turns, pressing his nose to Hux’s cheek. Hux doesn’t pull away.

For a long time, neither of them move. The only sound in Hux’s ears is the quick march of his own heartbeat, and, slower, against his chest, Ren’s. Life goes on, one pulse at a time, until it doesn’t. That’s the way of the Galaxy. Since he’s alive, Hux lets the moment of stillness fill him like the thick scent of Ren’s hair. He drifts into a thoughtless place without past or future.

Hux brings his hand up to Ren’s head, to his hair. He combs through it with his fingers, stroking Ren’s temple, the shell of his ear. Ren hums, surprised, pushing into Hux’s touch.

“I respect your effort to impress me, Supreme Leader.” Hux tilts his head to the side, to look Ren in the eye. “But please. No more tricks, from you or from your Knights. No games. No kriffing dirt on my uniform, Ren.”

Ren must understand at last, because he nods and brushes his nose against Hux’s in his clumsy, beastly way.

“I gave you this Empire,” Ren murmurs. “You never get to see it. I wanted to remind you what’s out there beyond Coruscant. What we’ve built together. Our legacy, Chancellor.”

“I do see our Empire. I can see the stars from the viewport in my chambers on clear nights. I read the news holosites far more often than you do. But Arkanis isn’t my legacy. It’s my past.”

The Supreme Leader has a nostalgic streak, in spite of his big words about destroying the old ways and forging a new path. After all, he grew up cosseted and admired, on planets not far from Coruscant. He’ll never understand Hux’s need to escape his past.

Ren pushes up on his elbows, still on top of Hux. He grins his sharp, deadly grin, the one only Hux gets to see. “Next time, I’ll cover you in mud from Chandrila.”

Hux scowls, pushes Ren’s shoulders. Ren dives to kiss Hux’s mouth, and the kiss is so strong and heavy and hungry that Hux moans into Ren’s lips, the last of his fear draining from him. Ren is alive, and he’s as horrid as always. For once, Hux appreciates it.

When the kiss is over, Ren rises to straddle Hux, his hands spread on Hux’s chest. He surveys Hux, his gaze serious, almost cold. His scar makes him look villainous. If Hux didn’t know better, he might be afraid of Ren. But Ren isn’t a villain. He’s conquered the Galaxy and given it to Hux, after all.

Hux says, “If you want me to see our Empire, Supreme Leader, why not take me on a tour?”

Ren looks taken aback. “You’d do that? Like, a vacation?”

“Not as a holiday, Supreme Leader. As a surveillance procedure. Let our subjects make no mistake as to our presence in every corner of this Galaxy.”

Ren strokes Hux’s cheek, his hair. “That could be arranged. I know a Chancellor who’s not bad at arranging things.”

“I’ll personally design our security protocols. The weapons for our ship. The might of the First Order’s fleet will leave every planet and system in awe.”

“Hux,” says Ren, brows raised. He pushes his hips against Hux’s cock. It’s no longer soft. “Say more about the might of the First Order. It has the right effect on you.”

Hux’s cheeks flare hot at Ren's wicked smirk, but the pressure of Ren’s body on his is too welcome to deny. He pulls off his gloves, and, with his clean fingers, wipes his eyes dry and free of dirt.

Ren lowers his chest to cover Hux’s, so they're aligned hip to hip. They’re both still slick, though they’ll need more if Hux wants to take Ren inside him. He does want to, he finds, to his own surprise. He wants to spread his legs for Ren. He wants Ren’s cock and his kisses and the strange way he mumbles sentimental words all over Hux as he fucks into him.

“You always get what you want in the end, don’t you, Supreme Leader?” Hux remarks, half-exasperated at his own desire. In spite of his fear of loss, in spite of all his efforts to dull his own feelings, in the end, Ren is always there, in his bed and in his head, to drive him mad in every way.

Ren, lips parted, considers this assessment.

“I get what I want,” he says slowly, dark eyes on Hux’s. “Then...then I give it to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I have shaky confidence in this fic and wasn't even sure I wanted to post it. Then again, I'm never confident when it comes to emotion, so, perhaps someone else will like this story more than I do. Feels ungenerous to keep it in my drafts when it's finished.
> 
> New TRoS junior novel info can't change my headcanons for Hux's mother.
> 
> Of course fanon Arkanis is peat and moors, and rightly so. But it’s a whole planet...there must be variation in the climate and terrain? Please accept my creative liberties taken with space geology. I did it for the aesthetic.
> 
> Thanks to [surrenderer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrenderer/pseuds/surrenderer) for talking DotF-verse holiday headcanons with me.
> 
> I'm on twitter at [sternfleck](https://twitter.com/sternfleck).


End file.
